Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Brit Hume Must Resign

Following up on the Fox rant, I wanted to get this campaign to have Brit Hume fired out to my readers. I have been sickened by the current state of journalism, which has given up its role as the fourth estate. No longer to we have an active journalistic community that attempts to inform the citizens of the issues confronting them and expose those who are abusing their power. Instead, we get a media obsessed with celebrity, which cowtows to power in order to get the big scoop or better sources and equates debate with yelling and talking points.

Look at the last few years alone, and it would seem time for heads to roll and changes to be made throughout the profession. From Jayson Blair to the Iraq War lead-up and WMDs, from Armstrong Williams to the outing of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, by Robert Novack, it is hard to have any respect or trust in these publications and shows. I mean, Novack is still on TV! Judith Miller still has a job at the NY Times for g-dsakes!!!! I mean, what does it take to be fired? Treason and incompetence are clearly not enough.

Fox has always stood out in recent years, as it has so brazenly abandoned the tenet of objectivity that journalists used to strive for. It has become the mouthpiece for the Bush administration, the Republican party and the conservative movement, turning the news into a Republican commercial. By doing it under the guise of journalism, it

The background on the Brit Hume scandal is nicely detailed here at Media Matters, the essential site chronicling the lies and distortions of the conservative media. His quoting of FDR was a "premeditated, historical fraud", according to Keith Olbermann, intended to portray the former President as a fellow supporter of Social Security privatization. This is not acceptable, and demands punishment. Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass are pariahs because of their plagiarism and lies, and Brit Hume must be next.

We as citizens have to share in the blame, as we have allowed all of this to take place. We are the ones who obsess over Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton, making this sort of media profitable. We are the ones who have demanded so little from the media when it comes to telling us what is going on in our government, in giving us the information needed to make democratic decisions.

Now is the time to change all of this, and it starts with getting rid of Brit Hume, a small first step. It is time that we demanded real democracy in this country, a real press who tells truth to power and a real debate about where we are headed as a nation. It is time for the media to get its act together, as we don't want to be asking what went wrong 20 years from now when we see what a disaster went on behind our backs, as we watched "Desperate Housewives". Follow the link below and get involved any way you can.


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